First Duty
by JustSaraNoH
Summary: As a soldier, Steve Rogers constantly faces a debate: which is more important-duty or family? Never before has he had any issue with putting family first, but when secrets are revealed during a time that is supposed to be exciting for his family, fidelity is tested. Continuation of Nadiaverse, started by Wishes and Nightmares.
1. Chapter 1

**NOTES:** This story is going to play with Marvel canon a bit. It takes place six-and-a-half years after the events in The Avengers. There was no HYDRA infiltration, Natasha's history with the Red Room and the Winter Soldier will be changed, etc.

This story is another in the series known as The Nadiaverse. It is not required that you read things like Wishes and Nightmares and What We Become beforehand, but it's a good idea.

Thank you to my readers who have patiently waited for me to start this off. I regret that as of right now I can only do monthly updates, but I'll do my very best to ensure their quality.

And, as always, thanks to the_wordbutler for being my cheerleader and word-scrubber.

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><p>"No, Daddy, that's wrong."<p>

Nadia put her hands down from above her head and moved from Steve's left side to stand in front of him. The four-year-old then wrapped her arms around his right calf and grunted as she pulled his foot forward into the correct place for third position. "It goes there," she said, giving him a stern look.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized, fighting a grin, "I'll try and get it right next time."

He got a weary sigh in response.

Steve knew third position. He knew all five positions to put your feet in for ballet; he'd picked it up from the showgirls he toured the country with decades ago. But his daughter didn't need to know that. He was quite happy playing the dumb student, at least until Nadia's temper flared, but Steve knew what warning signs to look for when it came to that.

Nadia settled back into her place at his side and looked up, ever-serious expression on her little face. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She nodded and then began to count. "And one, and two. Three and four-"

Steve kept his feet moving even as he heard the front door unlock and saw Natasha walk through. But as soon as his eyes fell on her face, he froze. She caught his gaze and gave the barest of nods and suddenly, the room seemed to tilt on its axis.

"You're sure?" he asked. Natasha nodded again. To the untrained eye, the action was more confident, but Steve saw the chinks in the armor and easily read her nerves.

"Daddy, you're not paying attention," Nadia groused at his side.

"Sorry, Bug, give me just a second," he said, eyes staying on Natasha. He crossed the expanse of the living room in few rushed steps. "Really?" he asked quietly.

Natasha nodded once more. "Ran the test three times. All positive."

He felt his face threaten to break with the grin that spread across it. Despite the excitement that had exploded within him, he made sure his movements to grab hold of and hug his wife were gentle.

"I'm not going to break," she whispered in his ear.

Theoretically he knew that, and she'd repeated it enough to him since taking Frigga's pill a couple of weeks ago for it to be embedded in his mind. But Steve also clearly remembered her third trimester the last time, which made him pull away and ask, "How are you feeling?"

She gave him a single-shoulder shrug. "Fine. I honestly just went for my annual check-up. Didn't think they would find this. Certainly not this soon."

He nodded. "It did happen faster than I thought it would."

"True, but since when do we ever take things slowly?" she asked while smiling coyly at him.

He laughed and leaned down to kiss her. While they hadn't taken some things slowly—Steve agreeing to raise Natasha's baby with her, jumping into a marriage that had felt more like a business deal than love—other things and emotions had taken time to fall into place over the last five years.

Natasha sighed against his lips before deepening the contact. The two of them only broke apart when Nadia loudly faked clearing her throat behind him. "Ah-hem."

Natasha pulled away and leaned around his broad frame. "Who taught you that?"

"Unc—I mean, no one."

"Are you lying to your mother?" Steve asked without turning around.

"It was Uncle Tony," Nadia answered, and without looking behind him, he could picture her with her face turned to the ground out of guilt for ratting out one of her beloved uncles.

"Uncle Tony is rude; don't do what he does," Natasha reprimanded before walking around Steve to move towards their daughter. "Did you teach Daddy your routine yet?"

"No, he still doesn't know third position," Nadia replied, giving Steve a look that clearly read _you should be better at this_.

"Oh, really?" Natasha answered. "Whenever he dances with me, he knows lots and lots of positions really well."

"Tasha," Steve warned.

Nadia's face scrunched up in confusion. "I thought there only five positions when you dance."

"There are," Steve answered, a hint of sterness in his voice. Natasha shot him a smug look, and he shook his head. "It's me they call when she starts unknowingly speaking in innuendos at preschool, not you. Don't make my conversations with her teachers any worse."

"They call you because they're female and you look like you do." Natasha turned back to Nadia. "I just saw Uncle Bruce. He said if you wanted to go down for a tea party in his lab, you could."

The little girl practically vibrated in excitement. "Really?" she said in a quiet, hopeful voice.

Natasha nodded. "Just be careful with his things."

"Can I go right now?"

Natasha pointed at the tablet resting on the coffee table. "Let's find out."

Nadia brought it over, and Natasha held it out to face her. With young yet skillful fingers, the child punched in the series of keystrokes needed to open a chat with Bruce down in his lab.

"Hey, Nadia," Bruce greeted.

"Hi, Uncle Bruce," she responded.

"You want to come down and have some tea with me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Please," Steve muttered.

"Yes, please," Nadia restated.

Bruce grinned at her. "Go get ready and I'll be up there in a minute to come and get you."

"Okay!" she replied excitedly before bounding off to her room to put on the child's sized lab coat and goggles she wore religiously whenever visiting Bruce's lab (and sometimes Tony's workshop).

Steve leaned into frame. "One day, she'll learn how to hang up a phone call instead of just running away."

Bruce chuckled. "It's fine. Is she okay to have cookies? I picked up a few too many when I went out for lunch today."

"Sure," Natasha answered, her tone making it clear that she didn't believe Bruce completely.

Bruce raised his eyebrows in Natasha's direction, and she gave a small nod. The scientist then turned to Steve with a shy smile. "Congratulations."

"Yeah, thanks," Steve answered, returning the grin.

"Did you win a contest?" Nadia asked as she came back into the room clad in her lab gear.

"What?" Natasha asked.

"Uncle Bruce said 'congratulations.' Did you win a contest, Daddy?"

Steve scooped her up and held her against him. "I won The Luckiest Dad in the World Contest," he answered.

The goggles only exaggerated the four-year-old's eye roll. "You're silly."

"Yes, I am," he answered, placing a kiss on each of her cheeks. "You ready?" he asked.

"Can I go down on my own? Please, Daddy?" She even pouted her bottom lip to give the full effect in attempting to play her father.

"No," Natasha answered. "You know the rules. You can only ride the elevator by yourself to the apartments. Not to the labs or outside."

"Fine," Nadia replied in an exasperated tone.

"I'll leave right now and be up there in a second," Bruce told her, chat still active on the tablet. That earned him a smile from his pseudo-niece.

Once Bruce came and collected Nadia and told Steve and Natasha that they'd be back in a couple of hours, Steve moved to hold his wife in his arms once more. "How are you?"

"I told you, I feel fine."

"How are you?" he repeated.

He felt her give slightly in his grasp. "I'm terrified."

"Glad I'm not the only one."

She pulled away enough to meet his eye. "Are we still sure we should we have another one?" It'd been a discussion they'd danced around for a year after Frigga had given Natasha pill that would render her fertile for a limited amount of time. Unlike Loki's spell that had created Nadia, this magic apparently wouldn't be detrimental to Natasha's health. Sometimes, Steve could almost believe that idea.

"I think it's a little late to ask," he answered. "We apparently should've had this conversation... How far along are you?"

"Bruce guessed four-and-a-half weeks. Which means the kid's due the first week of July."

"I swear I wasn't trying to give myself a birthday present," Steve said while trying to bite down on a smile. "So when did it happen exactly? Could you tell by the test results?"

Natasha nodded. "On the way back from that thing in Mexico City, apparently about thirty seconds after I took the damn pill."

Steve felt the corners of his mouth tug up in another grin. "If the kid ever asks, we're lying instead of telling them they were conceived in my ready room on the Quinjet, right?"


	2. Chapter 2

Per usual thanks to the delightful **the-wordbutler** for making me a better writer.

Welcome to the first substantial chapter of First Duty. Hope you enjoy.

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><p>Steve hated hostage situations. They twisted his gut in a way few other things could. He figured it tied back to Bucky and the rest of the 107th needing rescued from Zola and his crew. And it wasn't like Steve's gut wasn't twisted up enough as it was. He'd hardly slept at all the night before because his mind was already racing with thoughts of Natasha's pregnancy. Would this spell actually work? Would she and the baby stay safe? Would he inadvertently love this child more than Nadia since it was half his? Did his heart have room for someone else?<p>

Around three in the morning, Natasha had elbowed him in the side. "I can hear you thinking," she'd said groggily. "Shut up so we can both get some sleep."

He'd followed her orders, but Phil had buzzed through on his phone ninety minutes later to tell them they had a situation. It was in Moscow where some old man had forced his way into a school. His sole demand was repeated over and over again in his native Russian: "I want the Widow."

The first time it had carried through the Quinjet's comms, all the occupants on board—Steve, Phil, and Clint—had frozen. All three men spoke Russian with varying degrees of fluency, but they all knew what those four words meant.

Natasha had stepped down from active duty a few weeks ago after taking Frigga's pill. Steve had convinced her that they only had one shot at having another kid and they shouldn't risk having Natasha in combat situations while waiting for a positive pregnancy test. That was too risky, and she needed to step away from seeing direct action situations until, hopefully, after their child was born.

When the demand came over the comm, Steve looked at Phil. "Should we call Tasha?"

The handler shook his head. "Not unless we have to. You know her—she'll hijack a jet and fly to Russia."

"She's gonna be pissed," Clint warned from the pilot seat.

"Then she can be pissed at me," Phil said in his tone that made it clear he wasn't going to budge.

Steve was grateful for that. While things might go smoother if the old man's demand was met, he wasn't about to risk it. They formulated their plan en route: Steve would approach from the front and attempt to appear as a go-between for Natasha and the old man, Clint would sneak in through a side door and try to get as many civilians out as he could unnoticed, and Phil would monitor from outside with the Russian forces that were already on the ground. Phil probably had the most difficult job of the three. The situation wouldn't ordinarily catch S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention, let alone the Avengers', but the demand for Natasha had escalated things quickly. And the Russians were bound to be incredibly unhappy and insulted to have outsiders come in and clean up their mess.

There were already a number of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the ground, but they were having a hard time convincing the Russians that they were on the same side. In the few hours it took to get to Moscow, there hadn't been any new information. They'd studied the blueprint of the school building, made plans for entry and escape, but the rest was just going to have to be done on the fly.

Steve could hear Natasha making fun of the discomfort of "the man with a plan" having to fly blind. He already missed having her beside him during times like this.

Clint set the Quinjet down a kilometer from the school, not wanting to make their presence completely obvious to the gunman just yet. He did a final check on his comms and gear before setting off. Steve and Phil locked down the Quinjet before they, too, made their way toward the school.

Phil wished him luck and double-checked his comms before breaking off to join the mobile command unit. Steve checked in with the officer in charge. Thanks to Natasha wanting Nadia to be fluent in Russian as well as English, Steve had also picked up the Slavic language. He had a feeling that was going to come in handy today.

The officer standing near the door, Zharkov, filled him in on the details. The school only had a couple hundred people in it when the gunman came in. Some were able to escape, but everyone else was inside the large, windowless room that served as a cafeteria. Three people in the office were shot—one fatally—but as far as they knew, everyone else was okay. "He won't give us any other demands," Zharkov said in his native tongue. "Just that he wants the Widow. She with you?"

"Nyet," Steve answered. He adjusted his grip on his shield, double-checked his pistol, and made his way to through the front entrance to the school. Thankfully, the office had been cleared. Steve didn't need the image of another fallen body burned into his near-perfect memory. He'd seen enough needless death to last him several life times.

He moved through the office and out into the hall. Occasionally, a student's piece of art decorated the walls, and Steve's stomach twisted at the thought of his daughter being among the too-young hostages in the school cafeteria. Natasha may have been on to something the number of times she'd complained that parents shouldn't be superheroes.

Steve took a deep breath and cleared his thoughts. As he did so, Phil spoke in his right ear. "Take a left at the next corner, Cap. Cafeteria will be on your right."

"Roger that," he replied. He didn't ask about Clint's progress. After fighting together for six years, Steve had absolute trust in each of his teammates when it came to missions and combat situations. Even Tony.

Steve pressed his body against the wall and listened. The room inside was silent, and his heart broke at the thought of how terrified the kids must be in order to stay that quiet. The gunman—Steve still hadn't heard that he had been identified—must've been tipped that Steve was outside, because he bellowed, "I want the Widow."

Steve slowly opened the door. He put down his shield and gun and raised his hands in the air. The occupants of the room were all huddled together on the floor, some crying silently, some looking woefully lost, and some staring off in a manner indicative of shock. Steve was able to take one step forward before the gunman—standing in the center of the room—tightened his grip on a terrified teacher. For someone who looked to be about eighty, he had impressive strength. He also had a gun in his right hand that was pressed against the teacher's temple.

"She's not here, but she's in my ear," he lied in Russian while tapping his comms. "You know who I am and what my relationship is to her." One of the kids nearby whispered the word husband and Steve broke his eye contact with the gunman for a half-second to give the kid a reassuring smile. "Anything you tell me," Steve continued, "she'll hear."

The gunman eyed him for a second before speaking. "I have to bring her in," he said. "She disobeyed orders."

"Whose orders?" Steve asked.

"Petrovich," the man answered.

Phil's voice ran in his ear. "That's the KGB agent who ran the Red Room." While Steve had never pressed Natasha for information about her time in training or serving the Soviet Union and never sought out the information in her files for himself, he knew enough for his body to go cold.

"The Widow says she knows Petrovich," Steve said. "But she doesn't know you or what orders you're talking about."

The man's face hardened at his integrity and power being called into question. "Her orders were to stay at the base. She was not to run off, certainly not with one of our assets. She must pay."

Steve felt his own temper flare at the threat against Natasha. He would be the first to describe the many ways his wife could fend for herself, but it didn't mean that he enjoyed listening to her being threatened. "You didn't tell me who you are," Steve said. As he did, he caught a shadow moving in the open ceiling. The rest of the building must have been empty if Clint was in here to assist with the takedown. "She can't know that the orders are legit until she knows who you are."

The man rolled his lips, clearly unwilling to give up too much information and making Steve wonder for the umpteenth time why he devoted his life to working for an intelligence agency. "She knows me as Anatoly. And," he continued while using his free hand to pull back his overcoat to reveal a series of bombs strapped to his chest, "tell your man in the ceiling to drop."

Steve wondered if he was going to have to translate the words into English, but Clint obediently jumped gracefully to the ground, removed his quiver, and sat it and his bow on the floor before slowly raising his hands. Around them, small children fidgeted and whined in fear, and Steve wanted this to be over as soon as possible.

Clint had the same mindset. "I don't know about Cap here, but I think a couple of Avengers make better hostages than a bunch of scared kids." He looked back over his shoulder at Steve. "Don't you think so?"

Steve prepared to translate the comment into Russian for Anatoly, but the man was already clearly weighing his options. He nodded and Steve alerted Phil over the comms about the hostage exchange before sending up a silent prayer that Natasha wouldn't hear about this on the news. Not that she'd necessarily be worried (maybe a little), but more for the endless amount of crap she'd give Steve and Clint for being heroic idiots.

Slowly, the children and school staff were allowed to file out of the cafeteria, leaving only Anatoly, Clint, and Steve. "Now what?" Clint asked.

"I want the Widow," Anatoly repeated.

"You told him that wasn't going to happen, right?" Clint asked Steve, who nodded.

Anatoly looked at Steve incredulously. "You said she could hear us."

"She can," Steve lied again.

"Then I demand to speak with her."

"That's not going to happen," Steve replied firmly.

The old man made a motion to show off the detonator in his hand, and Steve inwardly cringed at the dead man's switch set up. "I can still blow this up. There's enough here to still hurt all the children who haven't been able to get very far yet."

Steve knew he was right; the man had enough explosive power strapped to his torso to take out a city block or two. It was a little bit of overkill and not necessarily like the KGB—or what remained of it—to make such a showy statement. It made Steve wonder just how much sanity Anatoly had left and if he even knew Natasha to begin with.

Clint, on the other hand, snorted. "It's cute how you think we've never been blown up before." Anatoly sneered and started to say something in return, but Clint cut him off. "Whatever your deal is with the Widow, you aren't going to get to her. Certainly not through the two of us."

"She cost us one of our most valued assets," Anatoly argued.

"You can't really expect us to be upset about that," Clint said. "Especially when we know what all you did to her."

"It was an honor for her to be chosen," Anatoly challenged. "She was among the elite."

Clint ground his jaw and sent a pleading look to Steve, but he shook his head. As much as he empathized with Clint's need to knock the guy around a bit, there was too much at risk. Who knew how many people were outside and within the blast radius? And while Steve and Clint had survived a number of explosions before, this one didn't look to be in their favor. The last thing Steve needed was die within a week of finding out he was going to be a father. He didn't want Natasha to be a single mother like Sarah Rogers had been, even though Steve had zero doubts about her pulling it off.

A small part of his mind wondered, not for the first time in his life, if his father even knew about him. Were his last moments in battle spent in worry about how he'd never get to meet his kid? Was Steve doomed to repeat that fate?

Steve heard the noise before he saw the shadow; he remained stock still regardless. He was pretty sure the other two hadn't heard or seen anything. Maybe Clint had if his hearing aids were set on the "super-bat-hearing" setting Tony had developed.

The next thing either of them knew, Anatoly was falling to the ground. Both Clint and Steve rushed forward to do who-knew-what to prevent a disaster, but no blast ever came. Steve looked at the side of the old man's neck and saw a tell-tale purple mark there—a night-night shot. Tony'd mocked the name created by a pair of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists endlessly since it was developed a few years back, but Steve preferred it to a traditional bullet.

A pair of boots hit the ground and Clint and Steve watched as a dark-skinned man with a bald head and neatly trimmed beard approached. "Of course this idiot had to hole up in here," the newcomer groused while checking the safety on his rifle. "Only damn room in the entire building with its own ventilation system and no windows. Guy knew what he was doing."

Clint nodded. "Thanks for that."

"No problem," he answered before nodding towards the unconscious Anatoly. "The dendrotoxin solution had an extra paralytic kick to it to make his hand cramp up on the switch. Didn't want it blowin' on you guys."

Steve thanked him and gave him a hard look. "You're Jones's grandson, right?"

The man smiled shyly and extended his hand. "Antoine Triplett."

"Gabe would be very proud of you."

"He always spoke very highly of you, Captain Rogers."

Things dissolved back into normalcy relatively quickly after that, as most situations the Avengers were called out on did. It always reminded Steve about that line of the world ending not with a bang but a whimper. The three agents stood guard over Anatoly until a pair of demolitions experts came in—one from S.H.I.E.L.D. and one supplied by the Russian forces. Together, the men disabled the explosives and carted them off for analysis. Steve, Clint, and Agent Triplett secured Anatoly before carrying him out of the building and to a S.H.I.E.L.D. armored van that was waiting at the dock entrance to the school.

Phil met them there and with an annoyed look on his face. "The Russians wanted him and didn't want to take no for an answer."

"You know who he is?" Steve asked.

Phil shook his head. "We don't have much on the Red Room, not that's there's a lot out there to begin with, but our searches haven't come up with anyone by the name of Anatoly. We're going to keep looking, and we're going to interview him when he comes to."

They all traveled to the local S.H.I.E.L.D. station in Moscow. Steve and Clint debriefed with Phil and started in on their after action reports while they all waited for Anatoly, now secured in a holding cell, to wake up.

"Sure they didn't overdo the dosage?" Clint asked while they watched the video feed of the old man sleeping.

Phil shot him a look to keep his comments to himself, and Steve excused himself to step out. Doing some quick math in his head, he knew it was around noon in New York. Hard to believe he'd been gone for less than ten hours with all his day had encompassed, but it was true. He pulled up his recent call list and tapped on Natasha's cell phone number. It rang four times before going to voicemail, and Steve frowned. He didn't remember her being in any important meetings today, and it wasn't like her to ignore a call from him when he was out on an op.

He found a quiet corner to hole up in while finishing his reports and checking in on alerts from around the globe and any updates about preexisting situations S.H.I.E.L.D. was monitoring. About twenty minutes later, Natasha called him back. "Hey," she greeted weakly.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nausea kicked in right after you left," she said. "I haven't missed this."

"As bad as the last time?" Steve asked, remembering how certain foods were off limits during her first trimester with Nadia.

"Worse," Natasha answered. Steve rolled his lips and pulled up the video feed on Anatonly's cell—the man was still asleep. "Don't come home," she told him, reading his thoughts. "Nadia's at daycare for a few more hours, I'm holed up in bed pretending to work from home, and Bruce is out gathering anything ginger-based he can find for me to try. We're fine."

"Call the McCoys if you need to, or have Pepper take her for the night if you need to rest," Steve suggested. "Have you eaten anything today?"

"Eaten? Yes. Kept it down? Not a chance in hell."

He checked his watch. "I can be home in a few hours."

"Don't you dare," she warned. "I got knocked on my ass this morning. I'll be better tomorrow. Besides, I did this part on my own last time. I can survive with you gone for a few days.

"You didn't have a clingy four-year-old around you the last time," Steve pointed out.

"We'll be fine," Natasha repeated. "Just get your stuff done and come home."

He disconnected the phone call and tried to refocus on his report. He hadn't intended to bring up the Anatoly connection to Natasha on the phone, and certainly not now if she wasn't feeling well. He hated that she was sick, not only because it meant she wasn't feeling well but because it brought up horrible memories from her last pregnancy. He tried to reassure himself that this time wouldn't be like that, but it didn't necessarily work.

Steve buried himself in work to shove nastier thoughts out of his mind, and a couple of hours later, Phil came in and dumped a pile of files onto the table. "This is what we were allowed to have by Russian Intelligence. Comb through it and see if you recognize any mention of an Anatoly or if you see his face in any of the pictures."

"He mentioned something about an asset," Steve commented as he pulled the first stack of folders toward him. "Any idea what he was talking about?"

"Asset?" Phil asked looking confused.

"Said Natasha made off with one of their assets and had to be punished for it. Petrovich's orders."

The handler's face creased in thought. "Petrovich ran the Red Room program; he was the one who found Natasha."

"That much I did know."

"As for assets…" His voice trailed off as he considered possibilities. "No way to know exactly what he was talking about. Could've been an informant, a weapon, who knows. There was a gap between Natasha leaving them and coming to us. Who knows what all she did in between."

"Fury didn't press her about it when she defected?" Steve asked.

"She came to us to survive, not because she wanted to switch sides. She wasn't really keen on divulging any secrets she didn't have to. And once she proved she was loyal, we didn't really push her on things," Phil answered. "You talk to her?"

"Not about this. Called, but her morning sickness is in full swing and I didn't want to bring this up."

Phil nodded. "We'll wait for Anatoly to wake up, question him to our liking, and then turn him over to the Russians before we head back home. Shouldn't take more than a couple of days."

It took four. Anatoly was resistant, and as soon as they started making headway on day three, he slammed the side of his face against the metal table he was sitting at to release cyanide tablet embedded in his cheek. They tried to get him to the medical unit to have the poison removed from his body, but he was dead eight hours later.

During the entire three days he remained adamant that he was working for Petrovich, even though Steve hadn't found any mention of someone by the name Anatoly in the files Phil had given him. None of the faces matched the de-aged version of the supposed Red Room associate the computer had spit out for comparison purposes. It was a four-day stretch of dead ends.

But still, to accomplish all he did and to even know the name Petrovich, Anatoly had to have some background in intelligence or the military. S.H.I.E.L.D. had restrictions on interrogation protocols, but they could still run harsh, especially on a senior citizen. Nevertheless, the man hadn't come to close to cracking. Clint reasoned he used his cyanide tablet because he was bored with the whole thing and insulted by it.

The flight home was quiet. Steve used the time to catch up on sleep. He'd only exchanged texts with Natasha over the last few days. She'd said that her nausea was still a nuisance but that she had things under control. Steve had a feeling that wasn't the whole truth, but he knew if he asked Bruce or Pepper to check in on her, he'd catch hell for it. No one else in the Tower had contacted him to alert him to Natasha being extremely under the weather or of her needing someone to watch Nadia for a bit, so Steve left things alone.

He shouldn't have.

"Daddy!" the shout came from the hallway off Nadia's bedroom as Steve walked into their apartment. "Mama's upchucking again!"

"Dammit, Clint," Steve swore under his breath, taking the name of the person who taught his daughter that term in vain. He turned the corner to find Nadia—dressed in her rain boots, pirate pants from last week's Halloween costume, frog pajama t-shirt, and fairy wings—standing in the doorway of her bedroom and pointing at the bathroom across the hall.

Natasha was hunched over the toilet losing what little she'd probably been able to eat during the day. Steve knelt down to help hold her long hair out of the way. He'd half expected to find out she'd chopped it all off again; she'd threatened to do it because of this very reason.

Once her stomach stopped betraying her, Natasha rolled back on her haunches. She lacked her usual control and slammed her back into the wall behind her, a faint whimper escaping her as she settled into a sitting position. Steve grabbed a little paper cup and was about to fill it with water when he heard Natasha softly tell him to stop. "I'll just puke it up," she explained.

Nadia wrapped herself around his leg. "Daddy, I missed you! And I'm bored," she exclaimed.

"Go play, Bug."

"I was playing. Mama promised to play with me today, but she's sick again. So now I'm bored. Will you play with me?"

He wanted to badly. He'd been worried about his family for the last four days, had barely slept at all, and desperately missed being home. He really wanted nothing more than to have a tea party or a painting session with Nadia, but Natasha was his priority at the moment. She looked thinner and paler than when he'd left her, and that sight set in his stomach like a chunk of ice. It was hard not to let his mind run wild with dark memories and darker possibilities. It was even harder now when Natasha'd been sitting on the bathroom floor for a solid minute without opening her eyes or trying to appear strong and healthy in front of him and their daughter.

"Nadia, I promise that I would love to play with you. I've missed you so much it hurts, but I need to help Mama right now, okay?"

"But what am I supposed to do?" Nadia whined.

"Can you go play in your room for a little bit? Or do you want to watch a movie?"

"I'll go play," she said with a weariness so heavy one might think she'd just been handed down a life sentence. The four-year-old turned and trudged into her room, an obvious show of her disappointment that neither of her parents could entertain her at the moment.

Steve would take care of that later; right now, he had more pressing needs. He knelt back down beside Natasha. "Has it been this bad the whole time I've been gone?"

She barely nodded her head. "Getting worse. I've had something to distract her with until today. Darcy was here the first couple of days, but she left with Jane and Thor to go back to Asgard. Pre-school and daycare took care of yesterday, but it's a Saturday and she wanted to be here when you got home, so I didn't call the McCoys."

Steve nodded as he fiddled with his wedding band. "Do you want me to call McClellan?" he asked after a moment of debating how much worry was the appropriate amount.

Whatever that amount was in his mind, it tripled in size when Natasha immediately nodded her answer.

"JARVIS?" Steve called toward the ceiling.

"I have alerted Doctor McClellan of Agent Romanoff's condition, Captain. She said that she will meet you in the Stark Tower medical ward in ten minutes," the AI answered. If Steve stopped to think about it, he thought he would've heard a bit of relief in the AI's voice, as if he'd had to watch all of this go down while not being allowed to call in for reinforcements. "Agent Barton is the most likely candidate in the building to watch over Miss Rogers at the moment; shall I notify him that you will be needing his assistance? Or would you like me to contact someone else?"

"Clint'll be fine, thank you," Steve replied. He felt a little bad for pushing an energetic little girl onto Clint, who'd just flown them all back from Moscow, but he'd make it up to the man later. Steve turned his attention back to Natasha. "Can you walk?"

"At least to the elevator. I don't want to scare her. Or Clint."

"Okay," he answered while gently helping her off the floor. Once he sure she could stand and lean against the sink without falling, he went across the hall to Nadia's bedroom. She was on her bed reading a book.

"Daddy!" she squealed as she jumped off of her bed and into Steve's arms. Judging from her outfit and her boundless energy, Steve was pretty sure Natasha had let her do and eat whatever she wanted just to keep her out of her hair. "Do we get to play now?"

Steve held her close and kissed her head. "Not yet. I need to take Mama to the doctor, so Uncle Clint is going to come watch you. Promise to be good?"

"Promise," she agreed while holding out her pinky.

Steve completed the traditional pinky swear before squeezing her in another hug. "Missed you," he whispered into her hair.

"Missed you, too," she whispered back before she heard Clint announce his presence in the living room. Then, she was squirming out of Steve's arms to go see one of her beloved uncles.

"Nice to know where I stand," he muttered to himself.

Nadia pulled Clint towards her bedroom, which meant he was able to look into the bathroom to see Natasha standing there. Steve watched Clint's face tighten in fear when he caught sight of her, but she was trying to give off the air of being somewhat healthy and okay. "Morning sickness is getting the better of me," she explained. "We're going to see McClellan. You okay with her?"

"Of course," he answered.

"Am I going to get sick, Mama?" Nadia asked.

"No, Bug," Steve answered. "Mama can't give you what she has." Nadia sighed dramatically in relief. Steve boosted her up and held her towards Natasha. "Kiss her bye—gently." She did so, and Steve pulled her against him for another hug. "We'll be back in a bit, okay?"

"Okay," she answered before climbing down and listing all the things she wanted to do with Clint.

Clint, however, kept looking back and forth between Natasha and Steve. "I've got her," Steve promised, and he reluctantly nodded.

Slowly, Steve walked Natasha out of the apartment. Once they were in the elevator, he told himself that he'd pulled Natasha against his side before she kind of collapsed there. The ride down to the medical floor was short; a nurse was waiting for them with a wheelchair to take them back to the room set up as a labor and delivery room when Nadia was born. As far as Steve knew, it'd been collecting dust since then.

A few minutes after he helped Natasha get settled into bed, Doctor Nancy McClellan entered the room. She was Natasha's obstetrician for her previous pregnancy, and this was the first time they'd seen her in a couple of years. "Funny," she commented while looking at Natasha's chart on her tablet. "This says you should still be sterile."

"You didn't tell her about the pill?" Steve asked his wife.

"No, she didn't," the doctor answered. "Perhaps you would like to fill me in on things."

Steve retold the story about how when they visited Asgard for Jane and Thor's wedding last year that Frigga had given them a pill that would make Natasha fertile. "She said it was a different type of magic that was used for when we had Nadia and that it shouldn't be as hard on her as last time," Steve said.

McClellan looked poignantly at Natasha—who was curled up in bed with her eyes closed—before looking back at Steve. "We'll see about that," the doctor said.

"Her nausea wasn't this bad last time," Steve commented. "What's wrong?"

"Probably a bad case of hyperemesis gravidum—extreme morning sickness," the doctor answered. "We don't really know what causes it exactly, but we'll give her some fluids, electrolytes, anti-nausea medication, and a sedative so she can get some rest. We'll keep her for observation for a day or two then let her rest at home once I'm comfortable with it." She paused to place a hand on Natasha's upper arm. "When you can't keep food down—or, you know, you're pregnant—you need to tell me."

"I was going to call," Natasha murmured into her pillow.

"Mmhmm," McClellan responded.

"You don't know what's causing this?" Steve asked. "There's nothing we can watch out for to prevent it?"

"Leading theories are an increase in hormones, which might indicate there's more than one bun in the oven."

That comment caused Natasha's eyes to open as she shot a dark look at Steve. He raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "I only want one."

"We'll do an ultrasound to confirm numbers," McClellan said while typing things into her tablet. "And compared to last time, I'd rather have too high levels than barely enough to skate by. I'll give you some recommendations on diet, but mostly you're just going to rest and get some nutrients and fluids in your system. The nurse will be in here in a second to get you hooked up on an IV. Try not to withhold any information from her, too." She caught Steve's eye and jerked her head toward the door.

Steve told Natasha he'd be right back and followed the doctor into the hall. "It's not going to be like this the whole pregnancy, is it?" he asked as he shut the door behind him.

"Hopefully not this bad, but she might have some form of nausea for a while. Tell me more about this pill."

"It was red," he said with a shrug. "Kind of glowy. I don't know what all went into it. Frigga swore up and down that it would Natasha be able to conceive and have a healthy pregnancy."

"Thor around?" McClellan asked.

Steve shook his head. "Left a few days ago for Asgard, not that he'd be able to tell you anything about it really."

McClellan swore under her breath. "You guys know I'm a good doctor, right? I'm a great doctor, in fact. Incredibly knowledgeable and capable, and then you two show up to throw this magic crap in my face for a second time."

"Sorry," Steve apologized, more out of habit than anything else. "She's going to be okay, right? And the baby? Or babies?"

"I will do everything I can to keep her and the baby safe, but that's all I can say right now. Honestly, with the possibility of you passing on some of that super serum, it could really work in your guys' favor."

"Good enough," Steve replied, even though he was entirely uneasy about the serum comment.

"Now will you guys please stop seeing Bruce Banner for everything medical? You know he's a PhD, not a medical doctor, right?"

After an ultrasound, McClellan confirmed there was only a single embryo and that the due date was indeed on Steve's birthday. She then left them alone to rest. Natasha grabbed Steve's hand and pulled him toward the bed. It took a moment for them to both get adjusted—on their sides, Steve loosely draping an arm around her waist to hold her against his front—with both of them in the bed and to avoid messing with any sensors or IVs. "What'd she say in the hall?" Natasha asked quietly in the dimmed light of the hospital room.

"Just wanted to know more about the pill," he answered. "Not that I could really tell her anything about it. She was a little pissed that you went to Bruce and not her."

"I didn't know I was pregnant. I really just went for an annual physical," Natasha pointed out.

"I know, but she was still a little upset about that."

"Probably because she was more interested in Bruce than he was in her."

"What are you talking about?" he asked while propping himself up a little.

"Remember when they tag-teamed for Nadia's first few months of appointments?" He nodded. "I guess they went out a few times after that, but Bruce eventually turned her down to be in whatever weird set-up he has with Tony and Pepper."

"That was four years ago," Steve pointed out.

"If someone dumped me for Tony, I'd be pissed for a while, too." They lay quietly for a while before Natasha said, "You didn't tell me how Moscow went."

"It was… I don't know, it was weird, but it's done."

"What was weird about it?"

He debated talking about it, but he could see in the dark that the sedative was causing her eyelids to droop and her breathing to slow down. "It was just weird, that's all." He leaned over to kiss her temple. "Go to sleep."


	3. Chapter 3

**NOTES: **Thank you, as always, to both my lovely readers for being patient with these updates, and to **the_wordbutler** for making them readable.

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><p>Natasha stayed in the medical ward for thirty-six hours. Steve stayed with her as much as he could, but left for an hour at a time to check in on Nadia. He artfully dodged the four-year-old's questions on why Mama was sick and when she would get better. He and Natasha hadn't discussed when they'd tell Nadia she was going to be a big sister, and he wasn't about to let it slip without Natasha's okay.<p>

The rest of the team knew, because, as Natasha constantly pointed out, the men on the team were huge gossips. Technically Thor hadn't been told, but that was only because he was on Asgard resting after spending sometime in the sleep chamber Jane, Tony, and Bruce had designed to protect Earth from outside invaders.

Natasha's release from the medical ward was dependent on a very cut and dry conversation with her doctor, Nancy McClellan. "I'd give you a pamphlet, but you'd just ignore it," the doctor said.

"Maybe you should have snazzier pamphlets," Natasha rebutted.

Steve fought a sigh. "Can you please not sass the woman in charge of your medical care?" Natasha shrugged, and Steve looked at McClellan to continue. He knew his wife was stir-crazy after being laid up with morning sickness for the better part of a week and that she was already fighting fears of things that could go wrong while growing restless with a non-combat work schedule.

The doctor handed Steve a sheet of paper. "This is a list of foods that can be helpful and some routines, like eating crackers before you get out of bed, which can help stave off nausea. I feel like out of the two of you, you're the one who will actually put it to good use."

Natasha yanked the paper and began to study it. When the doctor looked at her questioningly, Natasha muttered, "I hate puking."

"Let's kill two birds with one stone and save you from having to come in tomorrow for your first of the regular appointments, shall we?" McClellan said as she began to prep her files and technology. Even though the doctor had performed an ultrasound when Natasha was admitted, McClellan wanted to perform a more thorough scan, as well as the usual battery of tests.

Steve watched from his position next to Natasha's bed. He hadn't been around for the early appointments she'd had for Nadia and wondered what all they'd get to see or hear, but for now it was just another picture of a blob on a screen.

"Next time we'll try for the heartbeat," McClellan announced as she wrapped things up. "That'll be in four weeks. Until then, you call me if you need me."

"Promise," Natasha swore, and she sounded half-serious about it.

"Anything sound good?" Steve asked as they rode the elevator back up to their apartment.

"No," she answered, "but before you even start, I know I need to eat. Maybe just some toast." She paused to check the time on her cell. "Nadia won't be up for another hour, you think?"

"Probably." And even then, it would be a struggle to get the girl out of bed. With Natasha letting her do whatever she wanted to keep her out of her hair and with Nadia spending the last day-and-a-half from mission-weary, eager-to-please uncles, Steve was fearful of the girl's attitude. He debated whether or not to send a warning email to her preschool teachers that she was probably crashing from one of the largest sugar highs of her life, but he thought that may be taking things a step too far. "I'll get her. You eat and take a shower."

Sure enough, the little girl was not happy to wake up. Steve thanked Phil and Clint for watching her as he carried her down to their apartment. She tried to fall asleep against his shoulder during the thirty second trip. "C'mon," he said as he bounced her gently. "You gotta wake up for school."

"Don't wanna go."

"Sure you do. Don't you want to see your friends?"

She pulled her head off of Steve's shoulder to look him in the eye. "Can we just cuddle instead?"

Nadia knew just the right button to push. Whenever he came home from being gone, he'd pull her into his arms and proclaim that he wasn't going to let go until he stopped missing her. She'd either curl up into him or squirm in his arms, half-shouting, "I'm right here. You can't miss me." Steve knew today would be a morning where she would easily curl up with him for a while, and he knew those times wouldn't last forever.

But there was also his job.

"Make you a deal," he said. "You go to preschool, and I'll pick you up after so you don't have to go to daycare and we can cuddle then." She stuck out her pinky, and he completed the sacred swear. He took a hard look at her, specifically her hair and its greasy curls. "When was the last time you had a bath?"

Nadia shrugged. "I don't know."

"Was it yesterday?"

"What day was yesterday?" she asked, with a puzzled look on her face.

"Did Uncle Clint or Uncle Phil give you a bath?"

"No." She pouted her lower lip. "Do I have to take one?"

Steve sighed. He and Natasha had both hoped really hard that she would eventually get over her hatred of bath time. It had yet to happen. And this morning, Steve was more than willing to pick his battles. "I guess it can wait until after school."

She grinned, hugged his neck, and thanked him repeatedly until they were back in their apartment. When Nadia spotted Natasha, she clamored out of Steve's arm and ran to hug her mother's legs. "No more upchucking?" she asked.

"Stop saying words that Uncle Clint teaches you," Natasha warned. "And no, I'm not better yet."

"What's wrong? Why couldn't Uncle Bruce fix you?"

"Parasites take time to fix," Natasha answered.

Steve watched a million questions begin to bubble out of the four-year-old, and there certainly wasn't time for that—especially when he and Natasha hadn't discussed a game plan. "Breakfast, kiddo. Then school."

"Daddy said I could come home after preschool today," Nadia announced to her mother as Steve fixed her cereal. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see her adopt her serious face. "We have to have cuddle time."

Natasha tried to hide her smile behind her mug of hot ginger whatever Bruce had found her. "Is that so?" she asked. "A family n-a-p might not be a bad idea."

Nadia scrunched her face to try and make sense of what her mother had spelled out. She turned to Steve, who was setting down her cereal for her. "Is that bath?"

"No, but that is a thing that will happen today," he reminded her, hoping that if she heard it enough it wouldn't be such a battle. "Mama was just saying that it would be a good idea to have some family cuddle time."

Nadia shook her head. "Just me and Daddy. That's what we pinky promised."

"Mama can cuddle, too. I've missed both of my girls," Steve said. A small voice in his head reminded him that there might be three girls now in the room with him, and that was still a lot to take in. He caught Natasha's eye and was almost sure she was thinking the same thing.

"You saw her," Nadia argued. "You left me with Uncle Clint to see her."

"Okay," Steve said, raising his hands. He didn't need a fight right before dropping her off at preschool. And, yeah, Natasha's idea of a nap sounded like a solid plan. "Finish your cereal so we can get you to school, please."

He let Nadia pick out her own clothes and helped her get dressed. Thankfully her outfit selection—a teal sweater and jeans with hot pink socks —wasn't too awful on the eyes and was wholly school appropriate. They double-checked that she had everything in her little backpack, not that four-year-olds required too many school supplies, and put on coats to face the chilled November air.

"Phil scheduled a briefing," Natasha announced as Steve and Nadia were getting ready to leave.

"When?" he asked.

"Forty-five minutes."

Steve nodded. "I'll drop her off and head up to the conference room. You going to make it over?"

Natasha shrugged. "I'm going to stay here for as long as I can to make sure things stay down. Then I'll leave."

"Don't push yourself."

"Don't start with telling me that," she replied.

Steve bit back and apology and leaned in to kiss her, but Nadia yelled at him to stop. "She's sick. You can't kiss her on the lips or you'll get sick, too," Nadia pointed out. "You have to kiss her elbow. It's the rule, Daddy."

Natasha merely bent her elbow in the direction of Steve's face, and he gently kissed it. "Call me if you need me," he said.

"I'll manage," she responded before waving to Nadia. "Bye, baby."

"Bye, Mama," she replied before tugging on Steve's hand. "C'mon, Daddy."

When they arrived at the preschool, he hugged Nadia goodbye and then issued a preemptive apology to her teachers. "I haven't been home in almost a week, and Natasha has been under the weather. Sorry if she's out of control today. If she's too much to handle, call me and I'll come get her."

The teacher—Miss Michelle—smiled. "I'll take bad attitudes over pukers any day of the week. We'll be fine."

Steve nodded and looked over to wave one last time to Nadia, but she was already busy setting up the toy kitchen with her best friend, Zelda.

Once he left the childcare section of the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, Steve headed up forty-five floors to his office. It was still ridiculous to think that he deserved an office, even though the space had been his for a few years. Once the Avengers Initiative seemed to be a permanent thing, the six of them plus Phil were given a floor of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York City headquarters. Not that Tony or Bruce ever used theirs since they preferred working in the labs of Stark Tower, but it was nice to have a quiet place he could retreat to for working on reports and analyzing intelligence. The floor also had a large conference room where they team did mission briefings and debriefs. Phil, Clint, and Bruce were already there when he walked in, and Steve could hear Tony talking outside of the room somewhere on the phone. That left Natasha to be the last to arrive. Steve didn't worry too much about that. She still had five minutes before things were supposed to get started.

"Thanks again for watching Nadia," Steve said to Clint as he slipped into his usual seat to Phil's right. The handler, already seated in his standard place at the head of the table was thumbing his way through after-action reports for the Moscow mission. Clint was seated on his left, directly across from Steve.

"You really don't have to keep thanking us for the taking the kid every now and then," Clint said. He looked around the room and scowled. "Nat didn't come with you?"

Steve shook his head. "Wanted to make sure her breakfast stayed down. She should be here in a few minutes."

"I got a text from McClellan," Bruce said. "She wasn't too happy with me for keeping the news of the pregnancy to myself. Morning sickness rough?"

"Spent the last day-and-a-half in the med ward with severe dehydration."

Bruce pursed his lips. "She didn't tell anyone she was sick while you all were gone."

Steve figured as much. "From the sound of it, she wasn't able to keep anything down for a few days. It was bad."

"Do I need to put some official rules in place?" Phil asked. "I can contact McClellan—"

"Good luck with that," Natasha said as she sat in the chair on the other side of Steve. "I don't need you all ganging up on me. I'm a big girl."

"Who doesn't know how to ask for help," Bruce muttered.

Natasha shot him a dark look. "I'm here, food is in my stomach, let's just go."

Steve wasn't about to point out that she still looked queasy. He liked sleeping in his own bed. Phil, apparently, didn't care. "Maybe you should take the day off."

"Maybe you should get on with things," Natasha replied.

Phil sighed and yelled for Tony to end his call and come into the meeting. "I can handle two meetings at once," Tony said as he poked his head into the conference room, hand over his phone to block his voice. Phil merely glared, and Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, follow up with Pepper. I've got a thing." He dropped down into his traditional seat next to Bruce and looked expectantly at Phil. "Happy?"

"Thrilled," Phil replied in a deadpan tone. "Let's talk about Moscow." He transferred the files he was looking at on his tablet to the room's main holo projector. Above the table, reports and faces associated with the events from six days ago hung in the air. Phil grabbed at one face in particular and swiped his fingers to enlarge it before spinning it in Natasha's direction. "Recognize him?"

Steve watched Natasha's face as she studied both the current picture of the so-called Anatoly and one that depicted what he may have looked like a few decades ago. She shook her head. "No."

"He said he was working on Petrovich's orders," Steve elaborated.

"Petrovich had a lot of people under him," Natasha responded. "The operatives were limited to the number of people they interacted with. The fewer people we knew about, the fewer identities we could expose if we were captured."

"He said his name was Anatoly," Phil pressed.

She rolled her lips, but Steve knew she was just putting on a show. Her memory recall was almost as good as his. If she didn't recognize him, no amount of context clues was going to change that fact. "He's the one who held up the school," Steve explained.

Her eyebrows knitted together. "Why?"

"He said he wanted the Widow."

Her face hardened, and he knew he was in trouble. "And you didn't call me why?"

"Because you're not allowed on combat duty, and Clint and I had the situation handled," he responded, and if he adopted a little bit of the Cap tone of voice, then so be it.

Natasha turned to glare at Clint, but he held his hands up in the air. "I made the point that keeping you in the dark was going to piss you off, but I was outnumbered."

"It was my call," Phil announced.

Natasha sighed and shook her head. "I'm pregnant, not incapacitated or dead. I still have my clearance level and—"

"You wouldn't have even been able to help out because you weren't letting us help you take care of yourself," Phil finished for her. He ignored Natasha's glare and kept going. "I'm your handler. I made the call, because that's my job. It wasn't a slight against you, it was me trying to protect you."

Steve could hear the words I don't need protecting starting to bubble out of Natasha's throat, so he placed a hand on her knee. She tensed under the contact but kept her mouth shut. "He also said something about you taking an asset with you when you left," Steve said. "Any idea what he was talking about?"

"No," she answered.

But Steve knew her. Slowly, in the five years they'd been together, he'd learned his share of tells, the infinitely small tics that told him she was lying. Like she was now. He felt his eyes squint a little in her direction, but she kept her face blank as she stared back at him, almost a challenge for him to call her out on what he was pretty sure he saw.

Steve knew the basic story of Natasha's defection to S.H.I.E.L.D. She'd managed to escape from under the thumb of the KGB, where she'd started making a name for herself, and she'd loaned her talents out to the highest bidder. She didn't care who she was working for as long as she was free and building up enough of a savings account to stay that way. Clint had been ordered to take her out, but had brought her in instead. Phil had fallen on that sword, and Fury had reluctantly agreed to bring her onto the agency's payroll. Steve had never pushed for any more details than that. In their time together, neither of them really ever discussed their pasts, only enough to explain why certain dates made them sad or what horrible memory fueled that night's bad dream.

Their pasts were literally lifetimes ago. Neither of them were keen on focusing on them; it caused too much pain for different reasons, and so Steve had never pushed. He was now regretting that decision just a little bit.

Phil went through the rest of last week's events. "We have people investigating his interrogation sessions and looking for more clues as to what might have caused him to do this."

"I'd like to look at a copy," Natasha said. "He might have used a key phrase or something you wouldn't recognize, but I'd know."

Phil nodded and began typing on his tablet. "I'm sending a request that they give you access to the files."

"Thanks," Natasha replied.

The rest of the briefing continued on normally: they analyzed recent attacks from the last six months to look for weaknesses to improve, they discussed who from Maria Hill's nicknamed "B-team" of superheroes to swap in to temporarily replace both Thor and Natasha, and they reviewed training schedules and possible missions for the next month.

Steve half-listened as he once again wondered why Anatoly, if that was even his name, bothered with his hostage situation, and why Natasha might be lying about what all she knew. He understood there were some secrets she didn't want to come to light, but they'd all been close enough for long enough to be okay with anything she revealed.

And then, things went to hell.

"We've got a problem," Tony announced.

The holo screen in front of him flashed an angry red as his fingers few over the interface. He muttered something about hackers, and Natasha immediately brought up a similar screen. When she made sense of the nonsense in front of her, she swore under her breath. "What's happening?" Phil demanded.

"Someone's trying to break into the database," Tony answered.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s?"

"Our personal one for the team."

Steve rose slowly from his chair to come stand behind Natasha. Bruce did the same with Tony, and Phil and Clint looked on their own screen. While most of the world still thought Steve couldn't use a smart phone, he was pretty good with technology, but this level of counterstriking against an expert hacker was out of his depth. Tony and Natasha were the only ones in the room with the skill and know-how to stop it.

"What are they trying to do?" Phil asked as he eyed a progress bar at the top of all the screens. When it filled, whoever was trying to break in would have full access to the database. At the moment, it was at twenty-seven percent. "Do we know what they're looking for?"

"Not yet," Tony replied quickly.

Forty-two percent.

Their personal database included Tony's weapon and equipment designs for the team, Quinjet schematics, classified intelligence on any number of prominent people, detailed reports of high-security installations, and more. It was like a condensed version of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s series of databases, which was why Tony continuously spent hours and hours making sure it was secure.

Sixty-eight percent.

The room was silent save for Natasha and Tony speaking shorthand with each other, trying different ways to block or completely eliminate the threat. Each time they thought they were making a dent in things, the progress bar would jump ahead.

"I think I've got them," Tony muttered. But as soon as he finished his series of keystrokes, the progress bar jumped the last eighteen percent to completion. "Sonuva bitch," Tony swore in a mixture of frustration and awe.

"What are they taking?" Phil asked again.

Natasha squinted at her screen before shaking her head. "Nothing. They aren't taking anything, they're adding a file."

"Virus of some sort?" Bruce asked.

"Dunno," Tony replied. "I had JARVIS isolate the database from everything else as soon as the hack started, so if it is, it will stay in one spot."

"What about our files?" Steve questioned.

"We've got back ups if they're destroyed," Natasha told him.

Together they watched a large file slowly burrow its way into the database. Without anyone prompting it to do so, it opened.

Steve's breath caught in his chest when the first image displayed was that of his best friend, Bucky Barnes. It was Buck's photo that went with his service record, the one where he looked all tough and brave, but where Steve could plainly see the fear in his eyes. Below the image was the standard basic bio seen on any dossier: date of birth, height, physical appearance. The only anomaly was that Bucky's date of death—the worst day of Steve's life—was blocked out.

Before he could start to try and make sense of that, Bucky and his information melted away. In their place was a series of headlines. They all described horrible events from the previous century: attacks, assassinations, bombings, fires, and more. Some of the names Steve recognized, like JFK and Howard Stark; others, he wasn't as sure of. The next image was a map of the world with dots all over. Captions hovered each spot listing what awful deed was accomplished there. Even for Steve's accelerated abilities, there were too many to take in at once. Then, that too faded away and was replaced by the image of a man with shaggy, dark hair and a metal arm. He was mostly dressed in dark leather, and Steve could make out a number of weapons on his person. He couldn't get any details on his identity because there was a mask covering his face. The caption below the man's booted feet read Winter Soldier.

The image zoomed in on this Soldier's face. First, the piece covering the mouth slowly faded away. As the darkened goggles began to do the same, the room exploded.

"Make it stop!" Phil ordered.

"Can't," Tony hissed as he punched at his keyboard in vain, anger and a thin note of remorse in his voice.

Natasha spun around in her chair. "I'm sorry," she blurted. "Steve, I'm so sorry."

The utter fear in her voice distracted him from what had been revealed on the screen. Never in the years they'd been together had he heard her so terrified. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. This Soldier had Bucky's face. The eyes were hard and empty, but it was Bucky.

But Bucky had died when falling from the train.

Again, his service picture and dossier came up on the screen, but his picture was replaced with that of the Winter Soldier. In the line noting his death, the date 19 Dec 1982 was mock-typed on the screen.

Following the date, the words Killed by Natalia Romanova appeared.

If there was anything else on the file, Steve missed it because his vision pinholed. His breath came too quickly, sharp inhales like when he had asthma attacks. Someone, Natasha probably, touched his arm, and he jumped from the touch like it was a hot brand. He could feel the others in the room slowly edging toward him, and his instincts took over. He ran.

Some part of his brain told him that he was taking doors off hinges when he was making his escape, but he didn't care. He fled for the stairs, not wanting to be trapped waiting for an elevator. He jumped from landing to landing, descending over forty flights at an inhuman pace. He kept going until he reached the underground garage level. His brain kept urging him, telling him he had to get away.

Run. Run from the liars.

But they weren't liars. They were his family and closest friends.

Yet they'd known all this time. They had to have.

Phil had ordered them to stop the image.

Tony knew what was coming.

Natasha had apologized.

They knew. They'd known.

In a haze, Steve found his bike, the one Tony swore didn't have a tracker, but who the hell knew if that was true anymore. He revved the engine, pulled on a helmet to avoid spectators spotting him, and fled. He didn't care where he was going. He just had to get away.

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><p><strong>END NOTES: <strong>Clearly, I'm fudging both comics and cinematic canon when it comes to Bucky's fate. I hope you don't mind too much.


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